Start-up Story
Emmay is a start-up enterprise founded in 2017 by female founder Pham Hong Van, with an aim to become the primary brand in the region for the plant-based food market. The start-up applies 4D printing technology combined with protein from mycelium to create a protein substitute for meat. Emmay’s vision is to successfully lead the domestic market and eventually expand to the rest of the world.
Challenges Encountered during the Covid-19
Since 2019, Emmay has focused on researching and applying 4D printing technology in order to develop new alternative protein product lines, as well as promoting the business on the Vietnamese market. The new product was launched in Vietnam in the fourth quarter of 2020 and received a lot of positive feedback from customers.
However, product costs are still high due to production costs, so the product has not yet reached the majority of consumers. Reducing production costs requires the application of equipment with large initial investment costs, with high financial resource needs. In addition, as a food product that will be consumed, the requirements for certification are of a high standard. Furthermore, in order to be accepted in international markets, there are high quality requirements that need to be met (eg: FDA, USDA, Hallah, etc).
Due to the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, it is difficult for Emmay to mobilize and access capital sources. The impact of the pandemic caused the investment decisions of the potential VC to be postponed, despite due diligence during the contract deal phase. The upgrade and expansion of production was therefore delayed, causing Emmay to miss many business development opportunities as the current production scale was not sufficient enough to supply large orders.
On top of that, due to the wave of Covid-19 in Vietnam over the last few months, Emmay’s production and business chain was frozen as the workers were infected by Covid, and transportation was delayed. These factors have caused great damage to the company.
Difficulty as a Female-Founder
As a women entrepreneur, Van Nguyen struggles with balancing professional life with personal life. “Women entrepreneurs will have to arrange a limited time for both their career and family to fulfill the vocation of an entrepreneur, mother, or wife. So women entrepreneurs face tremendous pressure, even sometimes having to choose between their career or their family, because it is difficult for them to balance. There are many trade-offs between her personal life and her professional career. If a women entrepreneur has a big vision to scale up her business, it will be difficult for her to get that work-life balance. The famous Facebook COO Sheryl Sanberg herself once described how it was time to give birth and how she struggled to breastfeed and have endless online meetings while working at Facebook” – shared by Van Pham.
Being investment ready after joining the WISE Accelerator 2021
Due to the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, it is difficult for Emmay to mobilize and access capital sources. The impact of the pandemic caused the investment decisions of the potential VC to be postponed, despite due diligence during the contract deal phase. The upgrade and expansion of production was therefore delayed, causing Emmay to miss many business development opportunities as the current production scale was not sufficient enough to supply large orders.
While looking for guidance for Emmay during this transition period from a small business to an enterprise, Van Pham signed up for WISE Accelerator– which focuses on supporting women-led startups to expand globally– because it is in line with Emmay’s business development strategy. Since joining the program, Emmay has received diverse sources of support to help the enterprise get ready for the fundraising and development process.
Through the mentor-mentee matching session of the program, Van has been connected to 2 mentors who have helped her a lot in her journey of business development and fundraising. One is Mr. Nguyen Khanh Trinh – Founder and CEO of CleverAd – and the first authorized Google advertising partner in Vietnam. With his experience in entrepreneurship and fundraising, Trinh gave Van a lot of useful advice in approaching and working with investment funds. In addition, Van was also connected with a senior expert in business development from Unilever – a global multi-industry corporation, which mentored Van in business development for the Southeast Asian market.
When joining WISE Accelerator, Van was also connected with potential investors through investment matching. WISE has helped to connect Emmay to a venture platform supporting and investing in technology startups solving the Asian Pacific’s biggest unsolved problems. Emmay was evaluated as a potential investment by ADB Ventures and matched the Fund’s criteria: (1) co-investment; (2) creates social impact by addressing food and environmental issues.
Currently, Emmay is in the process of working with funds such as: ADBVentures, Next100, and Golden Gate Ventures. Emmay was also selected to participate in the flagship SWITCH Conference of Singapore, which will help Van and her business to expand their partner network and access many potential international VCs and investors.
